Ban Johnson Quotes

"He was the most brilliant baseball man the game has ever known. He was more responsible for making baseball the national game than anyone in the history of the sport." — Will Harridge

Source	Author	Date
Hall of Fame

"My determination was to pattern baseball in this new league along the lines of scholastic contests, to make ability and brains and clean, honorable play, not the swinging of clenched fists, coarse oaths, riots or assaults upon the umpires decide the issue." — Ban Johnson

Source	Author	Publisher	Date	Page
Ban Johnson: Czar of Baseball	Eugene Murdock	Westport, Conn.: Greenwood Press	1982	39

"Young Johnson proved to be a catcher who could have made his mark as a professional. He was a good thrower and receiver, worked his pitchers well, hit strongly and was the timeliest sort of a batter."

Source	Author	Date
The Sporting News	Paul Eaton	October 27, 1927

"Johnson was truly a gifted writer with a flair for satire that hit an opponent hard."

Source	Author	Date
The Sporting News	James Isaminger	November 10, 1938

"Johnson admired [Charles] Comiskey both as a player and as a man, while the latter in turn recognized in the peppery writer qualities that were soon to make their imprint on the game.”

Source	Author	Publisher	Date	Page
Commy: The Life Story of Charles A. Comiskey	G. W. Axelson	Jefferson, North Carolina: McFarland & Company, Inc.	2003	87

"I was to have a chance to test my theories, to experiment with my ideas and attempt the gigantic task of revolutionizing the standard of baseball.” — Ban Johnson upon becoming President of the Western League

Source	Author	Publisher	Date	Page
Ban Johnson: Czar of Baseball	Eugene Murdock	Westport, Conn.: Greenwood Press	1982	38

"I liked my newspaper associates and conditions in Cincinnati. I thought my future was in the newspaper game. I had already been in it for eight years. One year in baseball convinced me it was mainly a matter of grief." — Ban Johnson

Source	Author	Date
Chicago Tribune	Irving Vaughan	February 24, 1929

"Ban Johnson, President of the Western League, is a hard-working, reliable, and prolific writer of the sport, and since his ascendancy to the position he now occupies, the Western League has been more prosperous than at any stage of its checkered existence."

Source	Author	Date
Washington Post		March 8, 1896

"The success of the Western League had brought Johnson considerable favorable publicity, but Ban was not content to remain the head of a mere minor, albeit flourishing, league. In 1899…a set of circumstances arose in the baseball world that opened the door wide for an imaginative and aggressive organizer and administrator. Ban Johnson galloped through the entry.”

Source	Author	Publisher	Date	Page
Ban Johnson: Czar of Baseball	Eugene Murdock	Westport, Conn.: Greenwood Press	1982	43

“Johnson was another species entirely, a man ahead of his time, fueled by moral bombast and backed by an uncanny sense of timing. He had a vision for the future of baseball. He seemed to know instinctively that if he made the Western League profitable, the owners would blindly consent to his authority over all other pertinent matters. His office allowed him to influence the game he loved and to wield the kind of power he had so often written about in others for the sports pages.”

Source	Author	Publisher	Date	Page
Red Sox Century	Glenn Stout & Richard Johnson	Boston: Houghton Mifflin	2000	6

"If Johnson meets with the objection of the major league in an effort to revive another American Association, another baseball war will result; a war wider of scope and more important, in the issues that would stand and fall, than the Brotherhood fight of 1890."

Source	Author	Date
Washington Post		December 28, 1899

"A few days later Johnson came to my office and remarked; 'Well, I see my league is going to put a club in Chicago.' I had no idea at that time that Johnson was serious. And if he thinks I really meant he could put a club in Chicago in opposition to my club with my permission he is greatly mistaken." — Cubs President James A. Hart

Source	Author	Date
Chicago Tribune		March 8, 1900

"A couple weeks later [Nov. 1900], the National League met in New York. My request for new working conditions was put before the owners, but they were unanimous in their decision to ignore my demands. I was in Philadelphia at the time, hoping to be summoned by the National Leaguers to whom I wished to explain our stand. They sent back word that I could stay there until hell froze ever." — Ban Johnson

Source	Author	Date
Chicago Tribune	Irving Vaughan	February 24, 1929

“[Charles] Somers’ faith in Ban Johnson and his open checkbook were the legs upon which the American League learned to walk."

Source	Author	Publisher	Date	Page
Deadball Stars of the American League	Fred Schuld	Dulles, Virginia: Potomac Books, Inc.	2006	393

"There is no doubt in my mind that the parties mean business. It strikes me the American League people have secured an ideal location for their business.” — D.L. Prendergast after Ban Johnson and Connie Mack secured a location for Boston's Huntington Avenue Grounds

Source	Author	Date
Chicago Tribune		January 18, 1901

”To us it looked as if the National Leaguers hoping to choke off the expanding American League were actually aiding in the launching of the new organization. We decided we would go even farther than we originally intended." — Ban Johnson

Source	Author	Date
Chicago Tribune	Irving Vaughan	January 24, 1929

”Ban really preferred Cincinnati to Detroit, at that time an overgrown village, with no hint on how it was to develop when the auto came."

Source	Author	Date
The Sporting News	James Isaminger	November 10, 1938
Johnson originally wanted to place an American League team in Cincinnati, but he settled for Detroit when none of his Cincinnati friends would invest in his upstart league.

“Mr. Johnson is a much better man than I had been led to believe." — Joe McGinnity

Source	Author	Publisher	Date	Page
John McGraw	Charles Alexander	New York: Viking Penguin Inc.	1988	80
Johnson had suspended McGinnity permanently for his role in a brawl in Baltimore in August of 1901, but he reduced the suspension to 12 days.

“We did not fall on each other's necks, but we came to a perfect understanding...I think the trouble is all past now." — Ban Johnson about the McGinnity suspension

Source	Author	Publisher	Date	Page
John McGraw	Charles Alexander	New York: Viking Penguin Inc.	1988	80